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HP takes steps to boost employee morale

"We've seen some tough times and made tough decisions."

Brigida Bergkamp, spokesperson for Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's second-biggest computer maker, is trying to improve morale damaged after the 2002 acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp.

Hewlett-Packard, which has cut 24,500 jobs since buying Compaq in May 2002, is taking surveys to gauge how it can improve employee morale and is increasing the employee career-development budget to US$300 million this fiscal year from US$270 million last year, spokeswoman Brigida Bergkamp said.

"We've seen some tough times and made tough decisions as we've gone through the merger integration," Bergkamp said.

Hewlett-Packard applied to be on Fortune's list of "100 best companies to work for" and was rejected after an employee survey, the San Jose Mercury News reported earlier today.

The board is studying an internal memo that said workers ranked management low on credibility, respect and fairness, the newspaper said. Palo Alto, California-based based Hewlett-Packard, which now employs 142,000, was ranked as high as 10th in 1998.

Only 70 percent of Hewlett-Packard employees in the Fortune survey agreed management is competent at running the business, compared with 85 percent on average for the 100 best companies on the Fortune list, the Mercury News said.

Only 108 employees responded to that survey, while 93,500 responded to the company's own survey, according to Bergkamp.

Hewlett-Packard's survey showed employees were most critical of the company's strategy, workload management, performance strengths and "total customer experience." Employees ranked Hewlett-Packard above other companies in productivity, internal communications, strong leadership, the strategy of individual business units and risk-taking, the survey said.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard fell US$0.50 to US$25.62 at 4pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have climbed 12 percent this month.

International Business Machines Corp is the world's biggest computer maker.
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